“The showe and the principale of the toun of Bodmyn,” says Leland, “is from west to est along in one streate.” (Itin. ii. 114.) There were (says Mr. Hals upon the credit of information) within these sixty years past no less than thirteen churches, or free chapels, remaining either whole or ruined in the town and parish, and this was one.
The church of the priory, notes Mr. Hals, after the dissolution of religious houses, was converted to a parochial church. It was, indeed, such from the beginning: so Leland tells us concerning it in his time, “that the parish church standeth at the east end of the town,” &c. It was even converted as such from a rectorial to a vicarial church before 1290.
This prioral rectory church, Mr. Hals himself informs us, (long before the dissolution, and therefore not after the dissolution of the priory, as said before,) was converted by the Prior into a vicarage church; for in the Inquisitions of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, Ecclesia de Bodman was rated to the Pope’s annats at 6l. 13s. 4d. Vicar. ejusdem nihil propter paupertatem. So directly does Mr. Hals confute himself; but the words of the record are not cited fairly, and are in reality these:
Ecclesia de Bodmynia vil. xiiis. 4d.
Vicar. ejusdem xis.
Nor could any one of the thirteen be a free chapel, as no such chapels existed in the first or in the second valuation, and therefore none are mentioned therein.
Vivian’s “tomb is adorned round with crosses.” In truth, it has only one, and that is upon the northern side. “The arms of his Bishopric of Megara,” the arms of this Priory, and lastly, “those of his own or of his ancestors.” But there are three fishes repeated as arms twice; and Mr. Hals affirms himself that the jurisdiction and royalty over the river Alan, from Camelford to Padstow Rock, was given to this Priory by Algar Earl of Cornwall; and in further testimony of Algar’s donation of the royalty of this river, he gave for the perpetual arms of him and his priory, In a field Azure, three salmon-fishes in fess barwise Argent; which arms were lately extant in all the church windows of the churches under the priory.
Castle Kynock, as called by some to this day, but called simply the Castle by the generality, lies more than half
a mile to the south-west, has two ditches and two ramparts; the outer are very deep and very massy, the inner are much shallower and slighter. It takes in the whole crest of the hill, the ground within rising from the sides to the summit; is circular in form, because the hill is so; and has its only entrance on the east, denoted as an original entrance by the bridge of earth, as it were, which leads across the hollow of the ditches into it. The whole is double, I believe, to the extent that Mr. Hals gives it; and, from the position of the entrance on the east, appears to be Roman in its origin.
THE EDITOR.